Okay, so North America's limited edition Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker PSP pack doesn't include an exclusive camo PSP, or a stand thingy, or a snakeskin-like carrying case. But it does include a "Spirited Green" PSP-3000, a color previously unavailable in America. It doesn't include a PSP Go, so we're guessing the "relaunch" hasn't begun yet.

Launching alongside the standalone game on May 25, the pack includes said green PSP, a copy of the game on UMD, a 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo, and vouchers for both an unidentified movie download (for US residents only) and exclusive in-game items in Peace Walker, for $199.99.

Looking to add 85 new songs to your Guitar Hero library? Want a game that's made for "Party Play?" Oh, sure. Admit it -- you just want to make the ghostly Cobain avatar do your musical bidding. Well, whatever the motivation, you can pick up Guitar Hero 5 (the game only) for a pretty reasonable $28.99 today, thanks to Amazon's Deal of the Day.

While supplies last (or through the end of the day), the discount is applied to the Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, and PS2 versions of the game. Guitar Hero 5 is worth investing in especially if you're loaded down with PS2 instruments and don't want to buy new ones for another console -- there won't be any more Guitar Heroes for PS2, after all. So, if you want more music, this is pretty much your last chance, all you PS2 holdouts!

[Thanks, Jared]

There are a lot of totally awesome things in the God of War III launch trailer above: skydiving demigods, mountain-sized Titans, giant blue scorpions, and, of course, everyone's favorite chained antihero, Kratos -- to name a few. However, we'd like to specifically highlight the bit of PS3 marketing that ends all commercials for Sony-published games. This time around, it brags that the console only does "vengeance," "rage" and "everything," in that order.

We're imagining a scenario in which a Best Buy shopper asks a friendly sales clerk which gaming system would be the most appropriate for his kids ... and which one would be capable of "doing vengeance" on his in-laws.

The 2010 Game Developers Conference welcomed 18,250 industry professionals, many of whom also moonlighted as alcohol professionals during the evenings, to San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center for another round of the annual meet-up. The record number surpassed last year's total of 17,000 attendees.

Next year's show is already set to be tapped on February 28, 2011. A call for lecture submissions will go out sometime this summer. In the meantime, you can join the GDC circuit party and get your multi-core binary integration theory groove on at GDC Canada, May 6–7, in Vancouver.

It's rare to get excited for a Need for Speed project. Sure, it's a reliable franchise that's spawned a number of good, and sometimes great titles as of late, but innovation is hardly its strong suit. Considering the series' track record, I was surprised to find that one of EA's most ambitious and innovative upcoming titles is Need for Speed World, a free-to-play massively multiplayer online racer for the PC. It's the largest Need for Speed title yet, offering a potential platform for limitless updates, and it could easily become the last Need for Speed game EA will ever need to make.

Imagine a world not unlike the one found in Burnout Paradise and Test Drive Unlimited. Now, imagine those worlds with persistent online multiplayer functionality. Essentially, that's what Need for Speed World is. Even at its pre-beta stage, the gameworld is incredibly expansive, spanning over 150 miles of playable road, comprised of a "best of" tasting menu from the entire Need for Speed franchise. If there have been certain tracks, certain environments and certain streets you have enjoyed in previous games: chances are, you may find them in Need for Speed World.

[Heads-up: Details about the open beta -- launching today! -- are posted after the break following the preview.]

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We don't yet know precisely what to make of Rockstar's upcoming L.A. Noire (not that that's necessarily a bad thing), but after poring over a new Edge piece on the game, we think we may be getting a clearer picture.

"With traditional adventure games, everything is based on what the designer wants you to figure out," Jeronimo Barrera, VP of product development at Rockstar, told the publication. "We've kind of gone for a different approach, which is more like real-world detective work."

Developer Team Bondi isn't coming right out and putting it this way, but L.A. Noire sounds like a new genre, caught halfway between the open-world action of a Grand Theft Auto and the brainteaser pacing of a classic adventure game. Could we be witnessing the birth of the true "detective" game? Figure that one out.

Do you remember the last time you fell in love with a game? I don't mean "really liked," I don't mean "played a ton," I mean loved.

I remember the moment it happened with me and Metro 2033. I hit the Back-button to check my objectives and was surprised to see my character, an everyman named Artyom, pull out a physical clipboard with notes scribbled on it and a built-in compass. Not only did I need to pull the Right-trigger to look at it, I needed to pull the Left-trigger to ignite a lighter because the dim glow of the Moscow subway tunnels in which much of the game takes place wasn't enough to read by.

It was a little thing, but such a clear indicator that this was a game Ukranian developer 4A Games had put its heart in to and, in a sense, it gave me permission to put mine in as well.

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When Capcom woke up this morning, it decided it would like to have roughly a bajillion more dollars by this time next year. It walked over to a secret panel in its foyer, slid it open and pressed a button inside, labeled "New Monster Hunter." A press release was instantaneously launched announcing Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, the next PSP-based entry in the franchise, due out in Japan in late 2010.

The announcement heralds new monsters and areas to explore, an expanded "Felyne Comrade" system (we're pretty sure that's Russian for "cat friend") and improved co-op play. There's no word on plans for localization, but Capcom's been pretty diligent in unleashing the Monster Hunter series worldwide. You can get your first look at the outrageously large-sworded title in a trailer posted after the jump.

[Thanks Krystian!]

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A few things in this life are certain: Oprah will have a new book for you to read every month and you can bet there's a new Gears of War in the works. Edge says a source has put a pin in April 2011 as the release window for the third entry in Epic's series -- and we should expect the first teaser trailer next month, on April 8, with a full-on reveal at E3 in June.

"Microsoft's keen to avoid a clash with Halo: Reach and wants Natal to own Christmas," alleges Edge's source. "That's why we won't be seeing Gears Of War 3 until next year, but expect a major marketing push ahead of its release."

Recently, Epic prez Mike Capps hinted at a major game announcement to be made by the studio during E3. Additionally, EA has teased a "Shooter from Epic" due just before April in Q1 2011.

Now that Yakuza 3 has been out in North America for a whole week and Yakuza 4 ia due to hit Japan in two days, it's definitely time for Sega to announce another one. At least, that's what Sega seems to think. At a Yakuza 4 event in Tokyo, Sega showed a teaser trailer for a new game in the series, with concept art depicting the familiar Kamurocho district of the other games. As usual, the next iteration will be produced by series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi.

Codenamed "Project K," the new game appears to star a young man who "knew the graveness of the crimes he continued to commit," luckily, "fighting is his destiny," even if he "doesn't know the cruel fate that awaits." Powerful stuff!

The teasers calls this new project, "A new challenge for Ryu ga Gotoku [Yakuza]," suggesting that the next game could be different in some way. Perhaps this forthcoming Yakuza will leave the story of Kazuma Kiryu behind entirely in favor of a new character. Or perhaps it'll be made for a platform other than PlayStation 3.

I have an admission to make: I haven't played the original Risk board game. For hardcore fans of the game, that fact alone may discredit my opinion. However, after playing the upcoming XBLA adaptation, I wish I had discovered the board game sooner.

Risk Factions looks and feels like a Penny Arcade game: the art style is similar, and the writing is just as irreverent. As evidenced by the shorts released by EA so far, the world of Factions is animated (in more ways than one). The Colonel, who's fully aware that he's in a game, is one of the funniest characters I've seen in recent memory. Knowing his audience well, he promised that if I kept playing, I'd see tons of nudity in the game. (An EA representative hurriedly reminded me that it was just a joke, though.)

While Factions will allow players to play classic style Risk, newcomers will undoubtedly want to play through the main campaign first. The campaign does a good job of easing players into the basic rules of the game, and offers shorter, focused, objective-based challenges to conquer. The level I played didn't take place all over the globe: instead, it was a rather small map comprised of about a dozen tiles. One tile offered occupation of a missile silo, allowing you to launch a devastating area-wide attack against enemies.

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The Engadget Show is teaming up with Joystiq's very own Chris Grant this Saturday in a brand new episode that features the newly unveiled PlayStation Move motion controller. Sony's Richard Marks will take the stage, bringing some brand new tech demos that highlight what the controller is capable of. This will be the first time the general public will be able to get their hands on the device, with random members of the audience being able to play with the Move live on stage. And there's going to be a special surprise ...

If you're in the NYC area, go to Engadget to find out more details on how to score a ticket for the show. If you can't make it, don't worry! Both Joystiq and Engadget will have a live stream of the episode available for you to watch this Saturday, March 20th at 5PM EST. Hope to see you there!

We've never written about the Parrot AR.Drone on our humble news site because we've yet to see its applications in the gaming space. Don't get us wrong -- it's as inherently awesome as you'd expect a hovering, camera-equipped drone (that's controlled by your iPhone!) to be. However, "random things that are awesome" doesn't really align with our editorial purview.

At GDC, Parrot went to great lengths to show off the gaming applications of the Drone. A representative presented two tech demos to us, both of which use the device's front-mounted camera to recognize "tags" in the environment, creating augmented reality overlays which allow the user to virtually interact with an object. In layman's terms: It recognizes predetermined patterns, and turns them into virtual targets, at which you can then shoot virtual bullets and missiles.

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While Metroid director Yoshio Sakamoto may not have played Shadow Complex, the XBLA darling's creators definitely played Metroid. During a panel titled "Designing Shadow Complex," Chair Entertainment Creative Director Donald Mustard encouraged the audience of prospective downloadable game makers to embrace genre limitations. "So, genre is one of your limitations because you aren't just competing against other games that are released in the downloadable space," Mustard said, pacing across the stage. "You really are competing against Gears of War, Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 2. That is the real competition and you need to find a way to differentiate yourself from those kinds of games. And that is an awesome opportunity."

For Mustard, that meant moving "orthogonally" from what the "big $60 retail games" are doing. Mustard said, "For us, what that ultimately meant is target an old and abandoned genre. Which to us was kind of this Metroidvania side scroller adventure genre that had been abandoned. No one was making games in this genre. And we said, 'What if we took that genre and fused that with some of the modern sensibilities that had come out; some of the modern ideas of AI and physics and graphics? That would be a really cool combination.'

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Bumps in the night. Unexplained sounds. A chill up your spine. Extreme terror. These things aren't associated with the Nintendo DSi, unless you unexpectedly leave yours behind in a taxi. But A Different Game CEO Tom Soderlund wants to bring all of that augmented paranormal activity to your DSi with Ghostwire and turn you into a ghostbuster (minus the proton packs). Now you're armed with a stylus and the power of Nintendo.

Originally conceived four years ago for Symbian-powered smartphones, the idea is to turn your handheld into a tool for communicating with the paranormal world. The built-in camera, sound meters, light meters are all a part of the experience, providing a combination of real-world and computer-generated data. Soderlund's team built an adventure game around it -- you talk to ghosts, find out what's troubling them, and either capture them or attempt to ease their pain.

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